British MPs Call for Pressure on Azerbaijan Regarding Prisoners Held in Baku

A group of British parliamentarians has vehemently condemned the ongoing detention and trials of 23 Armenian prisoners in Baku in a letter addressed to their government. This was noted by Jessica Morden on her microblogging account, along with the relevant letter.

The MPs urged the UK government to exert pressure on Azerbaijan to facilitate the release of Armenian prisoners. The letter was sent by Jessica Morden, the chair of the parliamentary multi-party friendship group with Armenia, along with the group’s vice chairs John Whittingdale, Chris Law, and Lord Mark McInnes.

The parliamentarians emphasized that representatives of democratically elected authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh were detained following Azerbaijan's aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh and the forced displacement of around 120,000 Armenians from the region. “There is considerable concern, including reports from the families of detainees and the Armenian diaspora in the UK, regarding the lack of independent legal support for the detainees, physical and psychological torture, as well as the ban on representatives of international organizations and media from monitoring the trials,” the letter stated.

The MPs also expressed alarm over the reported threats regarding the suspension of BBC News Azerbaijan and Voice of America’s activities in Baku, as well as the cessation of operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the expulsion of numerous UN agencies from the country by Azerbaijani authorities. Families of the detainees have informed us that they are nearly entirely isolated and rarely make contact with their relatives. We are particularly concerned about the health condition of one of the detainees, Ruben Vardanyan, who was on hunger strike for nearly a month until recently.

We request that ministers discuss the possibility of representatives from the British embassy in Baku visiting the 23 Armenian detainees. We also urge ministers to firmly ask Azerbaijan to allow representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to return to Azerbaijan and visit the detainees to check on their well-being, to restore the activities of BBC News Azerbaijan in Baku, and to ensure detailed oversight of the trials and the immediate release of all Armenian prisoners as a guarantee for the path to stable peace between the two countries,” the letter from the British MPs concluded.